The Sidney Apostolic Temple will hold a festival from 1 to 6 p.m. on Saturday to help raise $20,000 for the hyperbaric oxygen
chamber the Robinsons say will help their son heal. The church is at 210 S. Pomeroy Ave. in Sidney.

For more information, call 937-492-7456.

The Dana Robinson Fund has been established at Champaign Bank, 101 S. Miami St., Quincy, 43343.

View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoJonathan QuilterDan Robinson holds his adopted son, Dana, 5, who had been beaten so badly that he wasn't expected to live. "There was never a question in our minds," Robinson said. "We would take him home."

She and her husband, Dan, flipped on the television and listened as a newscaster reported about
the baby, an 11-month-old boy tethered to machines, his brain so scrambled, his body so battered,
that no one figured he would live.

The baby's name was Dana Robinson, and he had been beaten by his father,

Michael Robinson, at their Bellefontaine home. Dan and Michael are cousins, but they hadn't
spoken to each other more than in passing at a funeral in probably 20 years.

Dana wasn't breathing on Feb. 26, 2007, when Michael called 911 and said his son had fallen. He
had not. Instead, police say, Dana had been systematically tortured: pricked with pins, pinched,
bitten, shaken, slapped and squeezed.

When the newscast was over, Mary turned to Dan and asked what they should do. His answer: We
help.

So Mary packed an overnight bag and headed to the hospital. She didn't know Dana, but it was
suddenly in her heart to be by his side.

Initially turned away because of hospital policy and the ongoing investigation, Mary returned
home and called authorities. She called multiple times each day, asking to help. She and Dan got
the ball rolling to take custody of Dana's older brother, Draven, who was

2 and had had his bones broken at the hands of his father.

Finally, after several weeks of navigating red tape, Dan and Mary were allowed to visit Dana. By
then, he had been moved some two hours away to a nursing home in northern Ohio.

That first visit changed many lives. As they entered Dana's room, Dan was stunned. This wasn't
what babies were supposed to be like.

Dana's traumatic brain injury had nearly destroyed him. Now a tiny, underweight quadriplegic
with cerebral palsy, he could not breathe or move or sit up on his own. He was fed through a tube.
Doctors said he would never know his own existence.

His bruises had faded to a dingy yellow, and his broken bones were still not completely set. But
his gray eyes? They were open. And in them, Dan saw hope.

"There was something there," Dan said. "We couldn't just leave him. He needed love. There was
never a question in our minds. We would take him home."

Dan, 52, and Mary, 50, have raised four children of their own and have 10 grandchildren who run
around their modest home more often than not.

Dan is in his second term as mayor of this Logan County village, which, now that all of the
Florida snowbirds are home for the summer, might have as many as 1,000 residents, he said.

He has worked on equipment in the dye-cast department of Honda's Anna engine plant for 23 years,
and Mary had worked as a nurse at an assisted-living facility. In 2007, they were dreaming of
retirement. They hoped to take a cruise every year.

"This?" Mary said as she adjusted Dana's tracheotomy tube recently. "This wasn't part of the
plan."

But the Robinsons are nothing if not faithful to God, and they believe they are not in
control.

"You just do what needs to be done," Dan said as he cradled and rocked Dana, who turned 5 in
March. Draven was upstairs playing with his plastic army men.

Dan said Children's Services officials were skeptical at first when the couple told them they
wanted to adopt not only Draven but Dana, too.

"If they hadn't let us have them both, it would have been like they took away our air," he said.
"We love both the boys with all of our hearts."

Michael Robinson, now 47, pleaded guilty to felonious assault, endangering children and domestic
violence in January 2008. He is serving a 14-year prison sentence.

He told police that he had just been trying to toughen up his children. He said the case had
been blown out of proportion, that he loved all of his kids.

Dana and Draven's mother, Sue Hutchins, surrendered her legal rights to both boys and pleaded
guilty to permitting child abuse. She was released from prison in January.

Five more children from the couple's previous relationships are being raised by others.

Dana came home from the nursing home to Dan and Mary's house in mid-2008. On Dec. 5 of that
year, the adoptions were official.

Draven said he loves his brother. But like any other 6-year-old, he'd rather talk about himself.
He wants people to know that he is smart and he can read (Dr. Seuss'
There's a Wocketin my Pocket is his favorite); that he is super good at video games; and that he really,
really wants to find a shark's tooth while on vacation at the ocean this week.

Dan and Mary's devotion to both boys surprises no one who knows them, said Mark Hina, pastor of
the Sidney Apostolic Temple, where Dan runs the Sunday school and the whole family attends.

"They have always cared about others more than themselves," Hina said.

He marvels at how the Robinsons have never wanted pity for Dana, just prayers.

"People look at him and say, 'How awful, how tragic,'" Dan said. "And we look at him and say,
'Look at how far he's come.'"

Dana is still helpless, and his physical health can be unstable. A nurse helps at home and at
his special preschool, and Dana still sees about a dozen specialists and takes three medicines a
day.

To say there aren't struggles would be to ignore the truth, Hina said. He sees it every now and
then from his pulpit on Sunday.

"When I preach that everything will be OK, I sometimes look down and I can see the brokenness in
that momma's heart. But in those moments of darkness, it isn't that Dan and Mary have lost their
faith," he said. "What I see are moments of weariness. The pressure and the burden can grow so
heavy sometimes."

From the beginning, doctors told Dan and Mary that Dana would never change. "A persistent
vegetative state," they called it. They said he wouldn't live long.

Various doctors have tried to offer a life expectancy. Mary always stops them. "They don't know
how long I'm going to live, they don't know how long they're going to live. How can they possibly
know how long Dana will live?"

They said he would spend his days in a bed, sustained by machines and fed by tubes. But that's
not true. Dana has been lifted from his wheelchair and stuck his toes in the sand of Lake Erie
beaches. He has smelled pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, and he has cried at the circus when the baby
elephant he seemed to so enjoy went away.

He has tasted baby food and popsicles and had sips of a McDonald's parfait. If two toys are put
in front of him, he now directs his eyes to the one he wants, Mary said. He sometimes seems to say
mom or
dad, or
go or
more. His eyes are less hooded and more focused, his senses heightened and more aware, Dan
said.

Three weeks ago, Dana started a new, intensive, alternative therapy called "conductive
education" at Brighter Beginnings in

Marysville. It already has made his muscles stronger and eased the spasticity of his palsy, his
parents said.

They give even more credit, however, to the three treatments Dana has had at the Cole Center for
Healing in Cincinnati. While there, Dana spends about 21/2 hours each day for three weeks in a
hyperbaric oxy-

gen chamber, a spaceshiplike tube.

Insurance won't pay for the oxygen treatments that are considered alternative therapy and are,
in theory, expected to reawaken and stimulate Dana's dormant brain cells. The Robinsons have spent
about $20,000 on the three treatments so far and hope to go for a fourth in July. But for $20,000,
they could get Dana his own oxygen chamber.

They hope to raise enough money to buy one and replace their dining-room table with the machine
so Dana could do the treatments for as long as it takes at home.

Hina and a committee of church members have planned a benefit festival for Saturday at the
church in hopes of raising the money.

The Robinsons pray each day for a miracle and believe that Dana will be healed.

"He's a normal 5-year-old trapped in a body that doesn't work," Dan said. "He's got so much to
offer."

He leaned over Dana in his chair and stroked his son's soft and puffy cheek. "You love Daddy,
don't you?" Dan said, and then he whistled a couple bars of a tune. Dana reacted, his energy
palpable from his father's touch.

"And Daddy loves you," Dan whispered.

Then, he whistled some more. Louder and louder it grew, more upbeat, happier.